To hate the term 'Tea'

[ditzyglamour]

I guess I know I am as it seems the majority use it. But to me, its dinner and growing up I can never recall hearing anyone refer to it as 'Tea'.

I just find it so flowery and annoying.

Got that off my chest now 😃.

Anyone else?

thinking on, if we eat out in the evening that's called dinner

'So nobody is allowed anything that makes them different to others anymore, then?'

Didn't say you weren't allowed feel nauseous at the word 'dinner'.What I should have said is 'that's a totally bonkers reaction'.

A rose by any other name and all that malarkey.

I'm a Northerner too but hate it also - I say breakfast, lunch and dinner - don't even get me started on supper, it makes me cringe - no clue why though

Breakfast in the morning.
Lunch at middayish.
Tea is either a cup of tea, a light mid afternoon meal such as scones, or a late afternoon meal consisting of sandwiches/cakes etc.
Dinner is anything from about 6 pm onwards, and definitely anything cooked.

You can have tea as your last meal of the day, but only if it's sandwiches, cakes etc. If it's a proper cooked meal it can't possibly be tea, it has to be dinner.

Supper is something I've only ever had when I worked as a nurse, as the evening meal break, where it was too late to be tea (usually about 8 pm), but often too snacky to be considered dinner. It was always referred to as a supper break, although I don't think I would ever have referred to any meal at home as supper.

'most days growing up I'd have breakfast, lunch, dinner. But we'd always have a roast lunch on a Sunday, so that was breakfast, lunch and tea.'

Yep. Same in our house.

Breakfast (morning)

Lunch (midday to 2pm)

Tea (4-6pm - what the DC have)

Dinner (7-9pm - what DH and I have)

Supper - what posher friends invite us round for. Never done a pre bedtime snack... but I would call it a bedtime snack not supper if I did.

Didn't say you weren't allowed feel nauseous at the word 'dinner'.What I should have said is 'that's a totally bonkers reaction'.

A rose by any other name and all that malarkey.

That's a bit of an aggressive reaction. Are you feeling quite well?

We have lunch, but use tea and dinner fairly interchangeably at home for the evening meal. If we were going out for tea it would be somewhere like Pizza Express or Prezzo, whereas out for dinner would be three courses and a bottle of wine in a proper restaurant. Supper to me is a snack before bed. My mother used to say it was really "common" to call your evening meal that when we were kids, but my poshest friend says she's "going out for supper", where I would say "tea", so who knows! We're in Scotland.

InDubious. Yes. The question 'what's for supper?' would be asked about the evening meal. Ditto, 'what's for dinner?'

We'd ask 'are you staying for supper?' to friends who happen to be round when we're getting food on the go. 'Come for dinner' would be a more formal invitation, relating to an event in the future.

In the olden days it was much more relevant and most working families ate a hot lunch/dinner and then had toast and cakes or tinned fruit for tea.

We now say breakfast, lunch and tea.
My in laws say supper for tea and it annoys the pants off me.
To me, supper is a hot choclate and piece of toast or a bowl of cereal at bedtime.

Damn this thread, I want some supper now but we're out of crackers.
I have tea (decaf) at supper time too.

I found this

Apparently it’s to do with class
www.blendedmec.com/whistle-stop/why-do-people-call-dinner-tea

• If you call it “tea”, and eat it at around 6.30pm, you are almost certainly working class or of working class origin. (If you have a tendency to personalize the meal, calling it “my tea”, “our/us tea” and “your tea” – as in “I must be going home for my tea”, “what’s for our tea, love?” or “Come back to mine for your tea” – you are probably northern working class.)
• If you call the evening meal “dinner”, and eat it at around 7.00pm, you are probably lower-middle or middle-middle class.
• If you normally only use the term “dinner” for rather more formal evening meals, and call your informal, family evening meal “supper” (pronounced “suppah”), you are probably upper-middle or upper class. The timing of these meals tends to be more flexible, but a family “supper” is generally eaten at around 7.30pm, while a “dinner” would usually be later, from 8.30pm onwards.

I just had supper couple of crackers with cheese and tomatoes ☺

Breakfast, dinner and tea. Supper is a quick snack before bed.

breakfast lunch tea (=light meal in the afternoon) dinner

*'most days growing up I'd have breakfast, lunch, dinner. But we'd always have a roast lunch on a Sunday, so that was breakfast, lunch and tea.'

Yep. Same in our house.*

Yep, same in mine (grew up in London - furrin family).

Married a Scot. He says tea, not dinner. I don't know, tea to me is a bit Corrie and Last of the Summer Wine, makes me feel weird saying it.

Absolute worst is "picky tea" though

'That's a bit of an aggressive reaction. Are you feeling quite well?'

Aggressive in what way?!
I think feeling nauseous over a plain old world like 'dinner' is bonkers.

If you had a cooked meal at lunchtime (e.g. roast) and then sandwiches at 5 o'clock, then you could call that dinner and tea I suppose. But if you do the normal thing and have a snack type lunch and a cooked meal in the evening, then that's definitely lunch and dinner.

I'm Welsh and we have breakfast, dinner and tea.

Loving the contrast between the snobbery and the reverse snobbery on this thread

So true. I'm sufficiently confident of my status as a member of the the "urban haute bourgeoisie,”(to quote Whit Stillman) to be quite happy to say "tea" can be the main evening meal eaten at 6-7.

I'm from a farming background in north-east Scotland - we had "tea" at that time.

I can't help but think this is a north bashing post.

Let's agree to disagree, shall we? We'll call it tea (when it's served at teatime) and you call it dinner. We'll call it dinner when it's served at dinner time and you can call it supper...

It's a regional thing, like alleyways, snickets and weinds...

Tea comes in a mug.
Dinner is what you eat at lunchtime in school.
Supper is the evening meal.

Not keen on tea.

But brekkie is worse than them all!

'It's a regional thing, like alleyways, snickets and weinds...'

Oooh what are snickets and weinds? That sounds like Harry Potter stuff rather than Northern stuff.

It’s lunch at lunch time, dinner in the evening. Like you ask for when you’re making a restaurant booking.